The Last Star
by Kaitsumi
Summary: An elder Bertie thinks about her life, when someone from her past comes to see her and does her an offer. One Shot.


**_A Théâtre Illuminata fanfiction because it broke my heart and I am so sad of what happened to Ariel, it's not fair! So I'm going to be making a lot of Bertie x Ariel fanfics from here onward because they deserved to be togetehr and you cannot convince me otherwise. _**

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the Theater Illuminatta series, if I did things would have gone a lot differently, believe me. _**

* * *

**The Last Star**

Her eyes were tired, not able to shed a single star as she stared out of the window facing the sea. Nate had left some minutes ago promising to bring her warm sup made by he himself. Peaseblossom slept in the armrest of her chair, the other fairies were helping her pirate with the food after expressing how hungry they were.

Not all things stayed the same, her age, for example didn't. Bertie was a human, but the fairies and Nate weren't, it had gotten to the point where she found it ridiculous, it angered her, but it mostly made her mad. Yes her life had been wonderful, she had seen many places with everyone, she had married Nate… well part of her had married him.

Her silver eyes traveled towards her right hand where the scar of an old gash was still present.

_Bertie. _

She was so tired, so very tired.

After moving to the Caravanserai, some years back, she had spotted a young woman of about nineteen, she was running Serefina's shop. Her hair was long and silver carried by the wind as she moved about the marketplace. Her eyes shone like a starry night when she smiled at her customers.

Every time old Bertie watched her she thought she might burst into tears.

Indeed her life had been better than what she could have asked for, she had her fairies and the love of Nate, her mother and father had loved her so much as much as they had lived, for even though her mother couldn't age, she had died out of sadness when her father passed away. Sometimes Bertie wondered if that would happen with Nate as well, or should she set him free of her as well before that could happen too?

Set him free like Ariel?

_Bertie._

His name. Even when she tried not to think about it she thought about it every day, that name that still left a bittersweet taste in the roof of her mouth. There was not one single day she didn't thought about him, about what could have happened. Where would they all be at that moment? Would have she decided which held her true love? Would have she stayed alone?

It didn't mattered in the end, because _she _had set him free. It had been _her _the one that had told him to take that one in a thousand wind, and he had. So why did it still bothered her seventy years later?

People often told her that her play was ridiculous, that no one could love two men just as strongly, but they were wrong, because no matter how long she had been with Nate, how much she truly loved him deep within her heart, he had never gained more ground than when Ariel had left. It was all the same, one half for each.

The window flew open, probably because of that rusty hinge that Nate had forgotten to oil. The marine, salty, air entered through the open square ruffling her silver hair which was now silver because of age, although she wouldn't know it since she had died Artic Tempest all these years for him as a memoir.

"Bertie." It was almost like the wind carried her name, as if he was murmuring it through the breeze. The way the wind caressed the side of her face felt as though as one of his delicate hands were passing it along her cheek. "Milady."

"Ariel." She whispered, her voice barely audible.

"A thousand years might pass and you'd be just as beautiful." Her eyes slowly opened up, believing it would all be in her mind, that it was all one of those hallucinations she'd been having recently of her mother and father and flying through the air. The doctor that had seen her had told Nate she didn't had much left.

But he was there, slightly transparent, like those last seconds in the burning theatre, but there, his silver eyes and silver hair, his fine features and even his familiars. The air moved around them like a slow tornado, so slow it reminded her of their turns in the tango many years ago.

"Charming." Bertie smiled as she saw Ariel kneel in front of her, his hands cupping her face. "What do you find more beautiful, the wrinkles or the smell of old lady?"

"I speak but the truth." He assured her with a leveled look. "It seems like your sarcasm has stayed with you."

"You'd disappoint me if you assumed otherwise." A small smile appeared in her lips.

"I'd never dream of it." Ariel murmured. "Could you feel me throughout these years, Bertie?"

"In every breath I took." If she hadn't cried so much all of those decades she might have actually shed a tear then and there. Instead her eyes glazed a bit with moisture as she remembered his last words. "You've always been with me."

"Every minute." Grasping his rightful hand, Ariel kissed the top of Bertie's bony knuckles. "Except when you were with your pirate."

It was almost comical, the thought that after all of what had happened there was still that sound of jealously in his voice. Bertie chuckled, the motion causing her effort, but she managed that easy laugh Ariel loved so much.

"I'm not too surprised—" A fit of coughing took her over then, her lungs weren't in the best of shape, but a current of oxygen entered through her nostrils as if she was connected through some sort of tank and that helped her alleviate the lack of it. "Sometimes I think the one that keeps me breathing is you and not those stupid medicines they give me."

Ariel smiled moving a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

"Perhaps I am, but I did not came here to serve as a breather, Bertie." He stood up then, still holding one of her hands and grabbing the other one with his free one. "I came to make you an offer."

"I have a sense of déjà vu within me." She shook her head slowly.

"I have given you seventy years, Bertie, seventy to enjoy with your swashbuckler pirate, seventy to have the life that you have always dreamed of." The air lifted his hair and so did hers. "But you never learned how to fly, Bertie, only once with me were you able to do so; so help me when I ask of you to let me show you how to fly, for I promised you I would. Leave the bones and blood behind as I did, free yourself, and I promise you I will not let you go."

_"__A different city every day."_ He had said once before.

She didn't asked him how she'd be able to fly when she didn't had her body because she knew her body wasn't capable of much motion anymore. Bertie also knew that she had given her all to Nate all of these years, they had loved each other so much, but once again the thought of him after her, after everything, she couldn't dare be so cruel… and yet, she had lived the majority of her life with half of her heart bleeding out. A new wound opening whenever she saw _The Tempest_ and that girl was playing Ariel, whenever she saw that woman at the market with her long beautiful silver hair. 

All of her life after Ariel's disappearance had been for Nate, now she wanted to give some back to the air spirit.

"I'm not an element, Ariel, if I die I rot in the ground." She managed a comical tone. A smile appeared in Ariel's lips, it was the first time she didn't actually told him no immediately.

"You're the wordsmith, milady. You can make things happen," He paused for some seconds. "If you had ever wished me back, I would have been by your side in an instant. "

"That would have been selfish." She admitted knowingly. "It would be taking what you value the most away from you, your liberty."

"After all this time, I do not know if I'd rather be a slave to you and have you by my side, or free and not have you at all." His lips grazed her knuckles.

"You got a taste of the second one." Her lids were failing her once more, but she didn't wanted to fall asleep, she didn't wanted to lose him again.

"Why do you believe I'm here?"

"I'm not going to slave you."

"That is not what I wish, Bertie." His eyes would have sent a shiver down her back were her muscles not so hard and tired. "I want to be free _and _have you with me."

"You said something like that many years ago." Bertie smiled, now her right hand was reaching to cup his side of his face, her wrinkles looked even more striking next to his perfect skin.

"I'll say it again if that can convince you." He leaned against her hand, summer winds warming her cold bones.

"You don't need to, because I'm already convinced." Bertie sighed. "Even if I turned you down, which I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do, I don't have much left to live here… if I go to my forest, I'll be alone, but if I embrace my father's side… the wind… I could be with you, and I'd never die."

It scared her, it really did, but she'd be able to watch over Nate and the fairies and if Ariel could manifest himself then surely she could as well, couldn't she?

Ariel's eyes were filled with hope, a smile spreading through his lips as his winds picked up speed.

"Bertie!"

"Now let me concentrate!" She chuckled lowly summoning all that was rest of her magic, she had done many plays, summoned many things, all that was left was very little earth, water, and air magic for one last phrase. She concentrated the way she did that day in the theater, letting herself free of anything that was material for all that she needed was the freedom of her soul to match Ariel's. She wished for Nate and the fairies to live a happy life, for them not to mourn too much over her, for she knew how much a heart ached when it was torn in half.

Suddenly her bones did not felt so heavy, her muscles weren't as tight, her sight was like new and her skin was the one of a seventeen year old. Her clothes had changed too, to a pair of jeans and a dark shirt she would have worn to be comfortable in at the theatre. She stood up from her chair grabbing Ariel's hands before looking back at her older self. A small ray of panic coursed through her. What had she done? She had left her body behind, she was merely a soul!

Bertie reached for herself with a trembling hand, but Ariel's arms wrapped themselves around her waist taking a step back away from her older self.

"Don't doubt yourself." He whispered in the crook of her neck, this time her spine wasn't too tired to muster up a shiver against her better self. "The step you have taken cannot be taken back."

She turned to the air elemental, his arms still wrapped around her.

"I just killed myself." Her voice was strong once more as were her eyes and her shoulders, her stance not hunched because of the weight of the world, in fact she felt very light.

Ariel cocked his head to the right curiousness shading his stormy eyes.

"Is that right?" He asked. "Because you seem very alive to me."

With that he placed his lips upon hers, and held her close to his chest so she could feel that he too felt very real and very alive, alive because he loved her, alive because he had never stopped loving her and he knew she had never stopped loving him too. Bertie's hands grasped his jacket which felt like silk under her fingers and not thin air as she had imagined. His lips were soft and his breath was warm, nothing was cold and dead.

She wasn't dead.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" He whispered moving a finger across her cheek catching the star before it fell to the floor.

"At this point," She laughed rubbing her eyes. "I don't know anymore."

Ariel bent down and kissed the top of Bertie's nose. One of his familiars flew out and took the small crystal from his hands before he placed it next to Bertie's cheek.

"For all those nights I heard you sob and call my name, I'll give you one of laughter and happiness, Bertie." He threaded his fingers through her artic silver hair laying a last kiss on top of her head. "Let me take you away and show you how to fly."

"Can we come back tonight, to say goodbye to Nate?" She wondered, although her arms were already around his neck as he carried her like that night through the rooftops, but this time she would let him carry her away.

"As milady wishes." He promised her before giving her another kiss in the lips.

"I love you." There was no force, no reluctance in those words. She loved him with all of what she was.

"I'll take those words even if I'm a fool for it."

"Good, because you're not, and I love you." Bertie laughed.

"I love you too, Bertie, more than you will ever imagine." Ariel whispered as the winds picked up around them and lifted their feet up. Their image slowly vanishing as the air took them away throughout the window just as Bertie's voice echoed.

"I think I've got a pretty good idea."

Paseblossom's eyes slowly opened as she woke up from her nap, it hadn't been but ten minutes but she felt like it had been an eternity. She stretched her small little arms ready to tell Bertie to wake up as well because Nate would be back with their food any moment, but she stopped herself before she could even think of what to say.

Bertie's eyes were closed, but she was not asleep as her chest did not rose, there was a small smile in her lips and her hands were colder than ice. The window was open letting that playful breeze enter through the room, other than that the only trace of Bertie was that last star resting on her fingers. The last star she ever shed as a human.

* * *

_**Why are my OTPS always so doomed? I want them to be Canon come on, why does the world hate me? *cries* No but seriously, I love these series, the ending wasn't the greatest, but they were amazing nonetheless so besides the fact that Ariel left, I love them and they might be one of my favorites. I really wished Matchev would have kept on writing make it a quartet or a series or something, but alas, one can't change the past and what happened. **_

_**Bertie x Ariel forever 3 **_

**_Nate is cool, I don't dislike him but I prefer Ariel._**


End file.
